Music

Bremen may be best known for its love of soccer and Beck's beer, but every April, its Jazzahead! festival turns the German port town into a capital city of jazz for a weekend

West Virginia's Blue Yonder makes its first appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live at the Culture Center Theater in Charleston, W.Va. Though this is the group's first time on the show, two of its members, John Lilly and Robert Shafer, have popped up dozens of times over the years.

Comparisons have always helped me appreciate jazz. An artist plays a tune fast; another does it as a ballad. A trumpeter finishes his solo, and a saxophonist takes that closing phrase and morphs it in a different direction. A musician revisits a composition years later with a new arrangement and ensemble. Aligned side by side, you get a good sense of why jazz is a music of individual style, and of gradual accretion, and of friendly "Oh, yeah, watch this" motivation.

Abigail and Lily Chapin, who together form The Chapin Sisters, make their second appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live at the Culture Center Theater in Charleston, W.Va. To say that the Chapins were raised in a musical family is an understatement: Their father, Tom Chapin, won three Grammys; their grandfather, Jim Chapin, was a respected jazz drummer; and their uncle, Harry Chapin, was one of America's most beloved folk singer-songwriters. Naturally, The Chapin Sisters' sound relies heavily on sibling harmonies.